Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Agriculture (2)
- Besse (1)
- Botany (1)
- Boxboard boom (1)
- Dams (1)
-
- Deforestation (1)
- Demographics (1)
- Farming (1)
- Forest Management (1)
- Forest burning (1)
- Forest ecology (1)
- Forestry (1)
- Forests (1)
- Gifford Pinchot (1)
- Hetch Hetchy (1)
- Indians (1)
- John Muir (1)
- Land Clearing (1)
- Land Use (1)
- Long Island; Blue Hill (1)
- Market forces (1)
- National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 (1)
- Native People (1)
- Penobscot River (1)
- Sustainibility (1)
- Typography (1)
- White pine (1)
- Wilderness Act of 1964 (1)
Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
The Improved Acre: The Besse Farm As A Case Study In Landclearing, Abandonment, And Reforestation, Theresa Kerchner
The Improved Acre: The Besse Farm As A Case Study In Landclearing, Abandonment, And Reforestation, Theresa Kerchner
Maine History
From the vantage of the twenty-first century, it seems remarkable that farmers, working with only hand tools and farm animals, converted over half of New England’s “primeval” forests to tillage and pasture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This period was marked by transitions as farmers responded to new markets, changing family values, and declining natural resources. These forces brought an end to agrarian expansion and caused New England’s iconic pastoral landscape to begin to revert to forestland. A case study based on the former Jabez Besse, Jr. farm in central upland Maine provides a link to New England’s agricultural …
Burnt Harvest: Penobscot People And Fire, James Eric Francis Sr.
Burnt Harvest: Penobscot People And Fire, James Eric Francis Sr.
Maine History
The scientific and ethnographic record confirms the fact that in southern New England, Indians used fire as a forest management tool, to facilitate travel and hunting, encourage useful grasses and berries, and to clear land for agriculture. Scholars have long suggested that agricultural practices, and hence these uses of fire, ended at the Saco or Kennebec, with Native people east of this divide less likely to systematically burn their forests. This article argues that Native people on the Penobscot River used fire, albeit in more limited ways, to transform the forest and create a natural environment more conducive to their …
Farms To Forests In Blue Hill Bay: Long Island, Maine, Kristen Hoffman
Farms To Forests In Blue Hill Bay: Long Island, Maine, Kristen Hoffman
Maine History
Disturbance histories are important factors in determining the composition and structure of today’s forests, and not least among these disturbances is the human use of the land. Land clearing in Maine peaked in 1880 at six and a half million acres, beginning on the coast and lower river valleys and spreading northward and eastward. The forests of Maine’s coastal islands have endured a longer period of clearing than any other in the state. Long Island, located in Blue Hill Bay, was first settled in 1779, primarily by farmers. Sheep-herding, lumbering, fishing, and granite quarrying provided supplemental livelihoods. By 1920 all …
Maine Lumber Production, 1839-1997: A Statistical Overview, Lloyd C. Irland
Maine Lumber Production, 1839-1997: A Statistical Overview, Lloyd C. Irland
Maine History
Complementing the qualitative account of forestry's impact provided by Geoffrey Carpenter, Lloyd Irland gives us a broad statistical overview of the industry, its changing economic fortunes, and its impact on the environment of the north woods. The data, while not always precise, reveal the terms upon which the state's decision-makers historically viewed the forest and its future. Mr. Irland is private forestry consultant in Winthrop, Maine, who has written widely on New England forestry topics, including Wildlands and Woodlots: The Story Of New England's Forests (1982).
Deforestation In Nineteenth-Century Maine: The Record Of Henry David Thoreau, Geoffrey Paul Carpenter
Deforestation In Nineteenth-Century Maine: The Record Of Henry David Thoreau, Geoffrey Paul Carpenter
Maine History
Thoreau’s Maine Woods, a record of three trips made between 1846 and 1857, offers a combination of literary metaphor and precise botanical and topographical observation. Comparing Thoreau’s journals with recent advances in forest ecology, author Geoffrey Paul Carpenter reveals a detailed picture of the various ways in which logging activity changed the forests, lakes, and rivers of Maine. Carpenter demonstrates that a precise understanding of forest history depends not only on traditional statistical sources, but also on the subjective personal testimony found in the literary record.
Percival P. Baxter: A Comment, Edward O. Schriver
Percival P. Baxter: A Comment, Edward O. Schriver
Maine History
This article analyzes Governor Baxter’s search over the years to find a rational understanding of the term “wilderness.”